KARACHI, Jul 8 (IPS) – The months following last year’s Mumbai terror attacks have seen a renewed sense of urgency among peace activists in Pakistan and India. Citizens are pushing their governments to resume the composite dialogue process between the two nuclear-rival nations.

India suspended the process after the Mumbai attacks, accusing Islamabad of not doing “enough” to contain terrorism. But activists argue that terrorism is not Pakistan’s problem alone.

A frequent visitor to Pakistan, he was in the country with two other Indians, meeting community-based organisations, political leaders and media persons in Karachi, Lahore and Hyderabad to take the push for peace to the people. His proposal to ‘twin’ the press clubs of Karachi and Mumbai was positively received.

“After the Mumbai terror attacks, Mumbai residents sent a clear message – No to war, No to violence, No to terror,” said Desai. “Thousands joined hands for a hundred kilometre long ‘human chain for peace’ on Dec. 10, 2008, to say this and urge a resumption of the peace process.”

He was speaking at a seminar in Karachi to underline the need for peace in South Asia and to honour Nirmala Deshpande, a prominent peace lobbyist, who passed away in May 2008.

A majority of participants in the seminar were women from low income localities whose husbands work as daily wage labourers. Mumtaz, a young woman suckling her toddler, told IPS that this was the second such event she had attended.

“I understand what it’s about,” she said. “They want peace between India and Pakistan. We should live in peace with our neighbours. Maybe then our lot will improve. We all want that.”

Breakthroughs between India and Pakistan are routinely subverted by violence like the Mumbai attacks.

The security establishments and military machines also have vested interests in keeping tensions simmering.

“There will be no peace until the arms race ends,” said Mohammad Ali Shah of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, representing a community severely impacted by the hostilities, with whom the Indian delegates spent an evening.

“There are currently over 500 Indian fishermen in Pakistani prisons, and over 150 Pakistani fishermen in Indian prisons,” Shah told IPS. “Fishermen on both sides caught violating the maritime borders are treated as prisoners of war.”

A consular access agreement of May 2008 – aimed at facilitating early release of prisoners – requires both sides to exchange updated lists of each other’s nationals in their custody every Jan. 1 and Jul. 1.

Pakistan handed over its list to the Indian government. “But India defaulted both times this year, and has been unable, for unspecified reasons, to provide Pakistan with a list of Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails,” reported The Hindu on Jul. 2.

The lists in any case are incomplete, with many prisoners unaccounted for.

Jaipur-based Kavita Srivastava of India’s People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), on her maiden visit to Pakistan, wanted information about five Indian prisoners incarcerated in Pakistani prisons since 1991.

“Only two are in touch with their families, we don’t even know if the other three are alive,” she told IPS. “When they heard that I got my visa, their families walked for a whole day to meet me. With tears in their eyes they begged me to bring any information I could.”

She was unable to ascertain their whereabouts but left with a promise from the provincial minister for prisons that “next time” she would be allowed to visit the prisons and verify for herself.

“Such visits are important to increase contacts. After all, we are one region. We should be able to meet,” Shakeel Silawat of the Youth Progressive Council told IPS, after arranging a visit for Srivastava with girls and women from his community. Silawats are Rajasthanis who often have families on both sides of the border.

“If there was dual citizenship for Indians and Pakistanis, believe me, many would take it,” asserts award-winning social activist Sandeep Pandey from Lucknow.

Pandey participated in the 2005 peace march from Delhi to Multan in the south of Pakistan’s Punjab province. The marchers had also received enthusiastic welcomes from Pakistani villagers along the way.

Karamat Ali from the Pakistan Peace Coalition which organised the visit said that the Indians left with “a sense of the urgency for peace with India which appears to be greater among Pakistanis”.

“They realise that they need to push the Indian government to change its attitude towards the elected government of Pakistan, go beyond pressurising the Pakistani government to ‘take action’, in order to break the grip of the establishment here,” he told IPS.

Such visits may not yield immediate results, but the fact that the governments allow them to take place is in itself a step, if not forward, then at least not backwards. And in the context of India and Pakistan, that can only be seen as positive.

Yes, some Pakistanis do see India as their ‘eternal enemy’ (much as for some Indians Pakistan remains the sworn enemy). This has even been the official policy of Pakistan in the past – formulated by military generals, not elected parliaments. However, this should not be confused with the current elected government’s policy, which is mentioned in the article, and nor should it be confused with what the bulk of the population wants.

The offensive remarks in your comment have been deleted as they violate the basics of civil dialogue which we would like to maintain at this forum.

There is no sense of urgency among the people of India, as mentioned in the post above. At the same time, irrespective of caste or creed, the supporters in India for a stable Pakistan would outnumber those in Pakistan itself. The agony is that this fact has kept your high-testosterone-wielding generals of the past and present in good humor and satisfied their ego by brandishing nukes every now and then. But they overlooked the inherent strength of a secular India which is only made to be ruled from the centre, not right or left!

Your people didn’t bother to delve deeper into the fact that the masses on both sides of the border may be different culturally or otherwise, but genetically they are only secular in nature. But your army rulers invoked jihad in the name of religion and indoctrinated the whole generations contrary to the basic nature of the races of this subcontinent.

Pakistanis do not want and most probably have themselves lost hope of a stable and integrated Pakistan. The reasons are numerous. The foremost being that Kashmir has been so indoctrinated into your blood that you have developed a habit of putting cart before the bullock. The best thing was to start with a strong economic ties with India and let Kashmir follow accordingly. Your AfPak tribes would also have benefited economically and could have been on ‘raah-e-raast’ by now! Nobody knows for how long would your state survive on the booty of greenback. Or wouldn’t it be an honorable life standing on your own feet rather than going around with begging bowl every now and then. Why does India need a viable neighbor? Not because India is scared of nukes but we have tasted the fruits of a free economic system which we want our neighbors also to share and move on the path of progress and prosperity. The ball always lay in the court of Pakistan!

Pakistan is not our enemy it is our brother . As nirmala didi said houses can be divided but hearts cannot be.
If family partitioned his house , they may live seperately but can exchange the joint sorrow with each other .
A friend can be changed but a neighbourers cant be.

I visited pakistan 5 times with nirmala didi but always find friendly and brotherly behavior from the people of pakistan . many of my friends from pakistan use to come to my place in panipat and I always welcome them with open heart and them as my loving guest.
WE have the same language , same taste , same conditions and we use the same abusives. So think .how we are indifferent from each other. There is no condition , from which we can be divided.